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Christmas On The Capitol.
Christmas on the Capitol .
BY GEORGE GISSING .
Author of " Thyrza" " Demos , " & c , § 'C . [ ALL RIGHTS RESERVED . ]
fET another Rome that is perishing . Upon thc lips of her inhabitants , tlio name sounds as it ever did ; but from tlie day of the square-walled stronghold on the Palatine to this of the modern capitol , proud of every most modern ugliness , how many a time has the abiding city transformed and renewed herself—so long embodying in her successive existences the progress of the western world
and now at length sacrificed in the struggle not to fall behind the age . Once more has the name a new significance ; the Rome which is familiar to onr imagination from many a modern page , the Rome of Papal Christianity , will soon be little more than tradition .
On my way to St . Peter ' s , on Christmas morning , 1 would gladly have thought of other things than il progrcsso , but it was impossible . At every step the change , rapid and inexorable , forces itself upon one ' s attention . To live in Rome at present is much the same as inhabiting a house in process of reconstruction ; everywhere is the
squalor of demolished buildings , the gaunt newness of edifices as big and as unsightly as modern enterprise can make them . It would matter comparatively little that all about the Piazza di Spagna spreads a town scarcely to be distinguished from parts of London ; one is prepared to find the tract of English and American tourists
marked with the commonplace and the ignoble . But in every quarter the same activity presents itself . Not an ancient ruin that can be viewed without a background of to-day ' s hidcousness ; ono must get far out into the Campagna if one would escape torturing incongruities and be at peace with the Rome one desires to know .
Commercial knavery is said to be responsible for much of tho building that goes on , and indeed I noticed everywhere on the walls an instructive proclamation of the siitdaco , bidding contractors remove by a certain date the scaffolding from numerous buildings on which work was suspended . More interesting , however , was the
announcement , at a lecture delivered before the British Archaeological Society , that the municipal authorities have it in mind to construct an iron bridge across the middle of the Roman Forum , to facilitate traffic . "Thereupon , " said the newspaper report , " an exclamation of pained astonishment broke from the whole assembly . " But the time for such exclamations is gone by .
"Emm cupitale d'Italia , "—Home the capital of Italy ; that is the phrase which the progressist Italian delights to repeat , and which sums the transition from the old order to the new . Eighteen years have sufficed for the transformation of the city . Roman nobles and ecclesiastics , by eagerly disposing of their landed
property to speculative purchasers , have hastened the process of development . Italy is bent on declaring to the world that she has at length made definite breach with the Middle Ages and is prepared to keep on a level with the other States of Europe , friendly or hostile .
As with thc capital , so with the other cities , everywhere the Italian is impatient of all that has hitherto made his country ' s charm for those who dwell amid the clangour of commercial prosperity . " - * - " " !) " " will have a new and strange sound for the ears of the next generation .
To grumble in no doubt irrational enough . It seems to bo thc law of advance that all peace and beauty shall perish out of the world , and the Italians cannot be expected to keep their country as a museum for the forest inn . One may lament , for instance , that the
Christmas On The Capitol.
most picturesque part of Naples will shortly disappear , and its place be taken by a town built on sanitary principles ; but it can scarcely be asked that a population should face perpetual epidemics to spare the artist ' s eye . There is no way out of it , as things aro ordered ; we must be content to remember what was .
And on Christmas morning , crossing the Tiber towards St . Peter ' s , it is with Rome , the capital of Christianity , that one ' s thoughts are busy . I passed the bridge of Ripetta , and traversed the district which is—or was—named the Castle Meadows : a little while ago it made a broad division of green land between the hill of the Vatican
and that part of Rome where strangers mostly dwell . Now it is being rapidly covered with houses of the familiar modern kind . In this encroachment , there is a peculiar significance . Beyond there , amid the priceless treasures of his palace , which by compact with tho State is an independent possession , and forms no part of the Italian
territory—there , with the Castle of St . Angelo , once the papal bulwark , frowning against him , sits Pope Leo XIII ., at odds with destiny . Between him and the capital of Italy is feud irreconcilable ; at his accession he did not even bestow the wonted blessing upon the people ; in their view he is supported in his futile claims by Foreign
Powers which look askance on the results of Italian unity ; he is tho enemy within their gates . And , day by day , Rome is spreading , spreading towards that hill of St . Peter ; the new Rome , which has no mercy for its own past , which is impatient of mediaeval incongruities . These barrack-like houses have more meaning than was in thc mind of their architect .
The great ceremonies of the Church are no more . Within St . Peter's I sought in vain for that whicii could support a mood proper to the place and the season . There was music in the Chapel of the Choir ; at many an altar the Christmas offices were being celebrated ; but too plainly everything was only the feble echo of past sincerities .
Amid the crowd of people scattered over the vast temple there were , I doubt not , worshippers ; bnt the great majority were merely curious . Worst of all was the prominence of foreign visitors—German , American , English—who discussed the ceremonies in loud tones and with happy freedom of comment . In their hands were thc volumes of Baedeker and Murray .
Perhaps in places less obvious lingered more of the Roman Christmas . Eventually , I chanced upon such a corner , and witnessed a ceremony which is at all events quaint enough to rescue one from the present ; not wholly without jarring notes—but I will tell you about it .
The hill of the Capitol can bo ascended , from the north side , by three ways . There is the direct ascent for pedestrians , by which you climb speedily to the Piazza del Campidoglio—the Piazza which was planned by Michael Angelo—and in the midst of whicii stands the bronze equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius . To the right of
this statue is the winding course by which carriages go up . To tho left are the marble stairs whereby you ascend to the church of Ara Coeli—long ago called St . Mary on thc Capitol . Let us take this last . The steps to be mounted number a hundred and twenty-four ; the marble of whicii they are made was taken from the ruins ' of the
temple of Quirinus something more than five hundred years ago . The aspect of the building above would by no means tempt one to the labour of climbing so far , for , as is so often the case with Italian churches , this of Ara Coeli has an unfinished facade ; it was once adorned with mosaics , but for a long time has shown nothing but
plain grey bricks , as unsightly a front as well could be . Those who come hither to worship are for the most part poor people , and it struck me as symbolically appropriate that the approach should be by a laborious stairway . In this world , for those who possess nothing ,
everything is made difficult and wearisome , and it expresses a hard truth when those of poor estate have to weary themselves before they can reach the place where they may for a little while lay down their earthly burdens , and make appeal to a justice other than that of man .
This afternoon the steps are thronged with people . Not only with those who are going up to , or coming down from , the church . A sort of fair is being held on them , and numbers of men are crying out the things th . ^ y have for sale . Chiefly one notices little
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Christmas On The Capitol.
Christmas on the Capitol .
BY GEORGE GISSING .
Author of " Thyrza" " Demos , " & c , § 'C . [ ALL RIGHTS RESERVED . ]
fET another Rome that is perishing . Upon thc lips of her inhabitants , tlio name sounds as it ever did ; but from tlie day of the square-walled stronghold on the Palatine to this of the modern capitol , proud of every most modern ugliness , how many a time has the abiding city transformed and renewed herself—so long embodying in her successive existences the progress of the western world
and now at length sacrificed in the struggle not to fall behind the age . Once more has the name a new significance ; the Rome which is familiar to onr imagination from many a modern page , the Rome of Papal Christianity , will soon be little more than tradition .
On my way to St . Peter ' s , on Christmas morning , 1 would gladly have thought of other things than il progrcsso , but it was impossible . At every step the change , rapid and inexorable , forces itself upon one ' s attention . To live in Rome at present is much the same as inhabiting a house in process of reconstruction ; everywhere is the
squalor of demolished buildings , the gaunt newness of edifices as big and as unsightly as modern enterprise can make them . It would matter comparatively little that all about the Piazza di Spagna spreads a town scarcely to be distinguished from parts of London ; one is prepared to find the tract of English and American tourists
marked with the commonplace and the ignoble . But in every quarter the same activity presents itself . Not an ancient ruin that can be viewed without a background of to-day ' s hidcousness ; ono must get far out into the Campagna if one would escape torturing incongruities and be at peace with the Rome one desires to know .
Commercial knavery is said to be responsible for much of tho building that goes on , and indeed I noticed everywhere on the walls an instructive proclamation of the siitdaco , bidding contractors remove by a certain date the scaffolding from numerous buildings on which work was suspended . More interesting , however , was the
announcement , at a lecture delivered before the British Archaeological Society , that the municipal authorities have it in mind to construct an iron bridge across the middle of the Roman Forum , to facilitate traffic . "Thereupon , " said the newspaper report , " an exclamation of pained astonishment broke from the whole assembly . " But the time for such exclamations is gone by .
"Emm cupitale d'Italia , "—Home the capital of Italy ; that is the phrase which the progressist Italian delights to repeat , and which sums the transition from the old order to the new . Eighteen years have sufficed for the transformation of the city . Roman nobles and ecclesiastics , by eagerly disposing of their landed
property to speculative purchasers , have hastened the process of development . Italy is bent on declaring to the world that she has at length made definite breach with the Middle Ages and is prepared to keep on a level with the other States of Europe , friendly or hostile .
As with thc capital , so with the other cities , everywhere the Italian is impatient of all that has hitherto made his country ' s charm for those who dwell amid the clangour of commercial prosperity . " - * - " " !) " " will have a new and strange sound for the ears of the next generation .
To grumble in no doubt irrational enough . It seems to bo thc law of advance that all peace and beauty shall perish out of the world , and the Italians cannot be expected to keep their country as a museum for the forest inn . One may lament , for instance , that the
Christmas On The Capitol.
most picturesque part of Naples will shortly disappear , and its place be taken by a town built on sanitary principles ; but it can scarcely be asked that a population should face perpetual epidemics to spare the artist ' s eye . There is no way out of it , as things aro ordered ; we must be content to remember what was .
And on Christmas morning , crossing the Tiber towards St . Peter ' s , it is with Rome , the capital of Christianity , that one ' s thoughts are busy . I passed the bridge of Ripetta , and traversed the district which is—or was—named the Castle Meadows : a little while ago it made a broad division of green land between the hill of the Vatican
and that part of Rome where strangers mostly dwell . Now it is being rapidly covered with houses of the familiar modern kind . In this encroachment , there is a peculiar significance . Beyond there , amid the priceless treasures of his palace , which by compact with tho State is an independent possession , and forms no part of the Italian
territory—there , with the Castle of St . Angelo , once the papal bulwark , frowning against him , sits Pope Leo XIII ., at odds with destiny . Between him and the capital of Italy is feud irreconcilable ; at his accession he did not even bestow the wonted blessing upon the people ; in their view he is supported in his futile claims by Foreign
Powers which look askance on the results of Italian unity ; he is tho enemy within their gates . And , day by day , Rome is spreading , spreading towards that hill of St . Peter ; the new Rome , which has no mercy for its own past , which is impatient of mediaeval incongruities . These barrack-like houses have more meaning than was in thc mind of their architect .
The great ceremonies of the Church are no more . Within St . Peter's I sought in vain for that whicii could support a mood proper to the place and the season . There was music in the Chapel of the Choir ; at many an altar the Christmas offices were being celebrated ; but too plainly everything was only the feble echo of past sincerities .
Amid the crowd of people scattered over the vast temple there were , I doubt not , worshippers ; bnt the great majority were merely curious . Worst of all was the prominence of foreign visitors—German , American , English—who discussed the ceremonies in loud tones and with happy freedom of comment . In their hands were thc volumes of Baedeker and Murray .
Perhaps in places less obvious lingered more of the Roman Christmas . Eventually , I chanced upon such a corner , and witnessed a ceremony which is at all events quaint enough to rescue one from the present ; not wholly without jarring notes—but I will tell you about it .
The hill of the Capitol can bo ascended , from the north side , by three ways . There is the direct ascent for pedestrians , by which you climb speedily to the Piazza del Campidoglio—the Piazza which was planned by Michael Angelo—and in the midst of whicii stands the bronze equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius . To the right of
this statue is the winding course by which carriages go up . To tho left are the marble stairs whereby you ascend to the church of Ara Coeli—long ago called St . Mary on thc Capitol . Let us take this last . The steps to be mounted number a hundred and twenty-four ; the marble of whicii they are made was taken from the ruins ' of the
temple of Quirinus something more than five hundred years ago . The aspect of the building above would by no means tempt one to the labour of climbing so far , for , as is so often the case with Italian churches , this of Ara Coeli has an unfinished facade ; it was once adorned with mosaics , but for a long time has shown nothing but
plain grey bricks , as unsightly a front as well could be . Those who come hither to worship are for the most part poor people , and it struck me as symbolically appropriate that the approach should be by a laborious stairway . In this world , for those who possess nothing ,
everything is made difficult and wearisome , and it expresses a hard truth when those of poor estate have to weary themselves before they can reach the place where they may for a little while lay down their earthly burdens , and make appeal to a justice other than that of man .
This afternoon the steps are thronged with people . Not only with those who are going up to , or coming down from , the church . A sort of fair is being held on them , and numbers of men are crying out the things th . ^ y have for sale . Chiefly one notices little